


put us back together right

by beardsley



Category: Captain America (Movies)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Neighbours, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-04-15
Updated: 2013-04-15
Packaged: 2017-12-08 14:23:48
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,645
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/762344
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/beardsley/pseuds/beardsley
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Steve knows every tenant in his building.</p>
            </blockquote>





	put us back together right

**Author's Note:**

> Title from Headlights.

Steve knows every tenant in his building.

He knew them even before he moved in, because SHIELD ran background checks on each and every one of them to make sure Steve wouldn't end up living with a neo-Nazi terrorist cell across the hall. He appreciates the worry, he guesses, but mostly he thinks it's hugely unfair to his neighbours. He knows everything about them; they know nothing about him.

He tries to be helpful, and neighbourly, even though a part of him knows he'll never have the kind of easy camaraderie and trust and simple human kindness he had back in his time. People in the 21st century build walls upon walls to separate themselves from one another; Steve will never understand the appeal of talking to someone over the Internet when you could hop on a train and just come visit. But that's not up to him, and he doesn't have it in him to judge. Things have changed really a lot, and so have the people. They're not worse (and Steve would have to be hugely naive to think that the 30s were good, that he wasn't lucky despite everything). They're just different, and they're different enough that the nostalgia is unbearable, sometimes, nostalgia not for a time or a place, but for familiarity. A sense of belonging.

So he helps his neighbours carry heavy things, fixes their plumbing (which he has no idea about, but hey, never let it be said that Steve Rogers is bad at winging it), and is so pathetically goddamn grateful when the old lady from 4D invites him in for tea and cake he's embarrassed for himself. There's a mother with two tiny sprogs in 1C, Ms Li. She has to pull double shifts at the hospital and there is no one else to help her, so Steve babysits the kids and brings her groceries.

There's a couple of girls who go to an art college who tell Steve all about the best places to get supplies, and about galleries and events. It takes Steve an entirely too long a time to realise that Juno and Fatima are _like that_ , and only then does it occur to him to do research on that front.

Yeah. Things have changed.

There's a guy in 6B who never gets to say more than a passing hello; he's always in a hurry. Steve knows, because SHIELD knows and told him, that Sam Wilson is a social worker with a heavy workload. Agent Coulson, still on crutches, tells him about Sam Wilson with a sort of pointed look, like he's trying to say something without saying it and hopes Steve will get it anyway. Steve does, eventually, but it takes him a long-ass time.

~

What SHIELD doesn't tell Steve is that Sam Wilson called dibs on spending kind of a lot of time on the roof, which Steve finds out about only when his apartment is small and suffocating and somehow still so empty it makes Steve's teeth ache, so he grabs a pack of cigarettes and a lighter and climbs up the fire escape to the roof, just to breathe.

He manages to light up and inhale, and then chokes on smoke when he looks up and the guy from 6B is watching him with a bemused expression. 'Oh,' Steve manages, 'hey. Sorry.'

'Don't be. We can't all help our nasty habits.' But he smiles, which takes the edge off the words.

Steve puts out the cigarette on the low ledge and puts it in his shirt pocket for later. 'Well,' he says, 'I don't want your lung cancer on my conscience. Steve,' he adds, a little awkwardly. 'Rogers. Hi.'

'4B, right? Hwei-Lan told me about you.' He holds out his hand, and Steve shakes it. 'Sam.'

Steve doesn't say, _I know_. He says, 'So do you come up here a lot?'

'I guess.' Sam shrugs and sticks his hands in his pockets. 'When I need to breathe. The air quality's shit, but look at this sky.' He jerks his chin up, and Steve looks. The sky over New York is huge, of course it is, big and wide and endless enough that Steve thinks he could maybe see the Earth curving on the horizon if he tried. Manhattan in the distance, with skyscrapers reaching up like spires.

'Yeah,' he says, something twisting painfully in his gut. 'Yeah, would you look at that.'

~

And that's how it starts. They don't agree to meet on the roof, it's not a plan, there's no schedule. But every couple days Steve comes up the fire escape and Sam is already there, and generously lets Steve indulge his nasty habit. Steve doesn't even know how it happens, but then he's telling Sam about the smoking — that it's not his thing, that it was Bucky's. That it's the only way he knows of keeping Bucky alive, even though it would probably be healthier (literally and not) to let go.

Sam tells him about the kids he works with, about the whole broken system he has to navigate, the system that doesn't care about all the people it's supposed to protect. So Steve tells him about growing up in the system, and all the hopelessness. He makes sure to call the orphanage a group home, to fudge some details, but Sam is smart, he gets more than he lets on. Steve can't bring himself to care; the only thing he cares about is that Sam doesn't think less of him for the half-truths.

Sam teaches him a little sign language, and Steve comes up with some artsy-drawing games kids might enjoy. The next time Mrs Schopenhauer invites him in for tea and cake she asks that he bring Sam with him, and two weeks later, on Sunday, Sam comes over to keep Steve company when he's babysitting Ms Li's offspring.

And then Thor's brother tries to take over Hawaii.

~

'So hey,' Clint starts on the way to Hawaii, all of them tense and on edge with nervous anticipation, 'heard you got a boyfriend, Cap.'

Steve blinks. 'What?' He's not the only one confused; Bruce, Tony and Thor all turn around in their seats to stare at him.

'Why was I not informed about this turn of events?' Tony demands. 'And anyway, since when does Captain America swing that way?'

'Since it's none of your business,' Steve snaps. 'How do you even know about this, Hawkeye?'

'Everyone at SHIELD knows,' says Clint. 'Tall, dark, handsome and a bleeding heart liberal to boot? Please. There was a betting pool.'

Steve is reminded of the way Coulson looked at him, during the debriefing about all the tenants in Steve's new apartment building. He has a terrible, terrible feeling. 'Oh god. Tell me SHIELD didn't set this whole thing up.'

'It was deemed that a personal connection would be beneficial for your adjustment to the 21st century,' Natasha says from up front, not even turning around. 'We didn't set it up, we analysed all the possibilities that were already there. Other scenarios included the single mother who lives below you, the art students and the barista from the coffee shop you pass on your way to HQ. We like to be prepared, Cap, that's all.'

'This is ridiculous. SHIELD is ridiculous,' Steve informs her, simmering with righteous indignation. 'Also, the art students are lesbians.'

'Hm,' says Natasha, and that's the end of it.

~

He comes home two weeks later, sick of debriefings and casualty lists and press conferences and feeling helpless even though they won, technically. When he comes up to the roof, it's empty; he sits alone on the ledge and goes through an entire pack of cigarettes, and wonders if he's man enough to finally call Peggy, if she'd listen to his tired whining. He ends up deciding that no, he's not that brave. Because when he calls Peggy and her voice is old and brittle — he doesn't know what he'll do. Cry, probably.

He doesn't see Sam for another two days, but then on day three (not that Steve's counting) there's a knock on the door and Steve opens it to see Sam, with a box of pizza in one hand. Steve didn't even notice he wasn't really relaxed until now, but that's what happens as they watch something pleasantly mind-numbing on Steve's barely-used TV, the pizza box between them on the couch like a particularly unconvincing chaperone.

It's — it feels like home, Steve realises, or as close to home as anything ever could in this time. He's not sure he deserves it, but maybe he can be a little selfish. So when Sam turns to him, Steve is ready. He grabs the pizza box and throws it to the floor, and he leans over to press his mouth to Sam's, and hopes for the best.

And the best happens: after a moment of stillness Sam kisses him back, easy but sure. The earth doesn't shake and there's no thunder in the sky, though Steve is pretty sure _he_ 's shaking, with relief and nearly seventy years of ice and a vague certainty that he's missed his chance. He leans into Sam and reaches up to cup the back of his neck to keep him close, a part of him waiting to wake up alone in his bed in an empty apartment. Sam curls his fingers in the front of Steve's shirt, and in his entire life Steve has never wanted anything to be real more than this, now, here.

He's lucky, so lucky, when Sam pulls back an inch, less, just far enough to murmur, 'I was just gonna say welcome home.'

 _Home_ , because home is where the heart is and Steve's heart has never steered him wrong before. Maybe, just maybe, he can let himself follow it now. He grins, and says: 'Good to be back.'


End file.
